Persona Non Grata
Page 24
The city was up ahead, the dome of the Cathedral catching the clear light of the late afternoon; to the east there was a thickening band of darkness. To the west, the sky was turning red.
Trotti recalled the drive back with Ciuffi. His eyes felt gritty.
“What?”
“You sent her to the Policlinico, didn’t you?”
“Who?”
Trotti raised his voice. “The Bianchini woman—don’t deny it, Spadano. How else did she know where to find me? And later, in Verona, how did you know where we were?”
“You’re a strange man, Trotti.”
“Just now”—a gesture of his thumb over his shoulder—“you think I didn’t notice the way you were soft on Riccardo? How you wanted to let him down gently? And you think I didn’t see the looks passing between you and the woman.”
“You’re jealous.”
“Jealous.” Trotti banged his hand against the edge of the car window. “Of course I’m not jealous. Jealous because her almond eyes are just for you? What the hell was it you once said? Something about finding yourself looking at the kids in the street and wishing that one was yours?”
Spadano’s face hardened. “Be careful, Trotti.”
They were crossing the Ponte Imperiale.
In the clear afternoon light, the tiered city rose from the banks of the Po like a well-defined photograph.
“A little boy just a little bit like you—perhaps a bit cleverer—who was going to grow up and become like you. Like you, but wiser.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m trying to say that you lied to me, Spadano. I thought you were my friend.”
“Friend?”
“We have collaborated often enough, haven’t we? We were friends—I’ve always liked you, always respected you. And I believed that the feeling was reciprocated.”
“Precisely.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re jealous, Trotti.”
“Of course I’m not jealous.”
“Signora Bianchini and I are friends.”
“You used her.”
“She is a charming person. You are quite right—both charming and attractive …”
“You used her to spy on me.”
Spadano laughed.
The woman continued her monologue over the police radio. The car ran along the LungoPò and turned left into Strada Nuova.
“A spy—so that you could know what I was doing.”
“Not at all.”
“You forget what you said to me, Spadano? About your needing a woman of child-bearing age? You remember?”
Spadano shrugged.
Strada Nuova was empty. They drove past the Questura.
“But you liked what you saw. Nice tits. Those were your words—nice tits and broad hips.”
“So what, Trotti?”
“You remember saying that?”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“You knew her—of course you knew Bianchini. And that’s why it didn’t take you too long to find me outside Monza at the bogus clinic. You were following me.”
“You’ve got a good memory, Trotti.”
“We were friends, Spadano.”
“Perhaps you can remember what I also told you—that you put people’s backs up.”
Traffic lights and over the canal. Then the railway bridge. “Take me to the hospital, Spadano, could you? Somebody I want to see.”
“You put people’s backs up and you make it hard for them to work for you. People who like you, who respect you because they know you are honest, because they know you are a good policeman—even they find it impossible to work with you.”
“Did you send her to Voghera?”
“Impossible to work with, Trotti—because you are proud and you can’t admit that you’re wrong.”
“Did you send her to Voghera?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bianchini drove me up into Santa Maria, and then afterwards—late at night—I saw her with a man …”
“A man?”
“I saw her with somebody in the station bar.”
“Signora Bianchini hasn’t got the right to do as she pleases, go where she pleases?”
“She was with you?”
“You are incredible.”
“Incredible or not, Spadano, you have betrayed me.”
They had reached the Policlinico. Spadano waited for the man at the gate to recognize the Carabinieri plates and raise the barrier.
“I respect you, Trotti.”
“You betrayed me.”
“Betrayed you because I was worried about you? Because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
The two men looked at each other.
“You’d almost been killed, Trotti.”
“When?”
“Of course I like you, damn it. I wasn’t sticking any spy on your tail. Can’t you understand? I just didn’t want you hurt. And then, when you were kidnapped, I wasn’t even there—I was still in Verona.”
“You used the woman, Spadano.”
The barrier went up and the car jolted forward.
“Signora Bianchini’s beautiful—I don’t deny it. And if she were to like me, if she just looked at me, I’d be happy, Trotti. The sort of woman I could live with.”
“And the child-bearing hips?”
“At thirty-seven, she’s not too old to have children.” A dry laugh. “With a woman like that, Sardinia could be bearable.”
“Over there,” Trotti said, pointing to a building. “You can drop me off outside Ostetrica.”
“The Sopramonte could be bearable. And I think I could even put up with the kidnappers and the shepherds smelling of the sheep they screwed. But that’s not the point.”
“What is?”
“The point is that she has eyes for you—for you alone.”
“Me?”
“Bianchini doesn’t even look at me, Trotti. I don’t even exist. It’s you she wants—and you can’t even see that. At Monza she spent two days looking for you. She wouldn’t give up—and she wanted the entire Arma to help her.”
“You got her to do what you wanted.”
“Never my idea she should sleep in the same bedroom in Verona.”
“Spadano, you put her on to me.”
“It was her husband I used to know. I didn’t know Signora Bianchini. When she found me in the barracks, I didn’t know her from Eve. It was because I was a friend of her husband’s that she came. She was worried about her son.”
“You admit you used her?”
“I told her where you were, Trotti—and that’s something she would have found out from reading the Provincia. No secret you’d been hit by a bullet and were here in the hospital.”
“You told her to watch me.”
“I gave her my phone number. That’s all. It was her decision to phone me. I never asked her to. All I ever told her was to contact me if …”
“Yes?”
“To contact me if things got out of hand.”
The car stopped.
“Where did you say, Trotti?”
“Where what?”
“At the station in Voghera, you said.” Spadano took the cigar from his mouth and threw it out of the window. “You saw her with a man—at the station?”
“With you, Spadano. She was with you.”
“With Bianchini.” Spadano snorted. “With her husband, Trotti. Bianchini’s trying to set up a small shoe factory in Voghera. Making shoes for children.”
“Why her husband?”
“Probably wanted some money from him.” Spadano turned away. “She’s a very beautiful woman, Trotti.”
For a moment, the two men sat in their seats staring through the windscreen at the hospital gardens.
Spadano placed his hand on Trotti’s sleeve. “Trouble with you, Piero, is you don’t know when you’re lucky.”
63: Incubator
UNDER THE PLASTIC dome, Ivan
now lay asleep, naked on the sheet. The tubes had been removed and the baby’s body seemed to be larger and more robust than before.
“Such a little thing.”
Ivan slept with his minute fists clenched.
“You have come to visit us again?”
Trotti turned.
“Come to see the child?”
Trotti nodded and smiled, “Ivan is doing well for himself.”
They shook hands; her grasp was firm. She wore her name on the lapel badge, DOTT.SSA STEFANELLA SILVAN. The doctor said, “We’re very proud of him.”
An acrylic glass door in the wall of the incubator. Dottoressa Silvan raised it and carefully changed Ivan’s position.
The baby frowned in his sleep.
“You’re coming along like a house on fire, aren’t you, precious? Show the nice policeman your big, fat legs.” The doctor made gentle sounds and then closed the door. She ran her finger down the scale on the thermostat.
“Seems to be clinging to life.”
The doctor glanced at Trotti. “It’s all we’ve got, Commissario.” She was still wearing her gold crucifix, and, like a larger crucifix, a stethoscope hung from her neck. The end had been tucked into her breast pocket.
“Ivan’s going to live?”
She had applied a pale lipstick to her mouth. “Of course.”
“And somebody’s going to adopt him?”
“Not at once.”
“When?”
The smile made her look like a young girl. “Ivan will have to remain with us for a bit. But the risk of pneumonia has been dealt with.”
“A tough kid.”
“A tough mother—she gave birth by herself, all alone in the fields. By leaving the baby with a lot of umbilical cord, she unwittingly saved his life—by preventing serious hemorrhaging.”
“When will he leave the hospital?”
“Before the end of the year Ivan will be sent to the Institute—and then it’ll be another five or six months before he’s adopted.”
“Adopted,” Trotti repeated.
“And how is your friend?” A hand to the side of her head. “The policeman with hair over his ears—and none on top.”
“Who will adopt him?”
“A kind man—he was very good with the mother.”
“Who will adopt Ivan, Dottoressa?”
She gave Trotti a shrewd glance. “Good on female psychology, your policeman friend.”
“Tell me about the adoption, Dottoressa.”
The woman placed her hand on his sleeve. Thin, attractive fingers and a pale skin that was flecked with freckles. “I think I understand.” She looked into his eyes and smiled.
“The fact that he’s—well, that he’s run health risks—how will that affect the adoption?”
“Ivan’s health is no problem. But adopting a child is something—”
“Trotti!”
They turned.
The swing door closed softly behind Spadano. He walked fast, his eyes on Trotti. He did not spare a glance for the double row of incubators.
Trotti said, “Dottoressa Silvan—Capitano Spadano of the Carabinieri.”
To Trotti Spadano said, “Good job you’re still here.” A brief nod to the doctor.
“Keeping an eye on me, Spadano?”
A click of the tongue. “Something you ought to know.”
Spadano looked out of place in the ward.
“Commissario Trotti was making enquiries about adoption.” The doctor bit her lip to stop herself from smiling.
Spadano took Trotti by the arm and he led him to a corner of the small ward.
A poster on the wall showed an African mother breastfeeding her child.
Spadano spoke in a low whisper. “On the radio—I’ve just heard …”
“Radio?”
“The intercom in the car … A report from Santa Maria—another body has been found on the edge of the town. Head smashed in.”
“Who?”
“Still waiting for a definitive identification. A woman—not a peasant woman. Soft hands and feet …”
“Who, Spadano?”
“In the fall—they found her beside the river—the face was disfigured.” A taut grimace. “But there are already people who have identified her.”
“Who?”
Spadano did not say anything.
“The Baronessa?”
“Listen. She’s not at her home.”
“Dead.”
“A couple of men went to her villa with a warrant. She wasn’t there. But …”
“Yes.”
“In the basement they found several trunks. Containing paintings … rolled-up canvasses. Renaissance paintings. And also …”
“Gold?”
“You knew?”
Trotti turned away. Tired and depressed, and beneath the lids, his eyes felt as if they were burning.
He moved back towards the doctor.
“Trotti …” Spadano said.
The woman stood by the incubator and was looking down on the sprawled, innocent form of the child.
Ivan had opened his eyes.
The young doctor was making gentle sounds in her throat and, with her fingers, she was tapping the acrylic glass dome, trying to win the baby’s attention.
It seemed to Trotti that the smile on her young face had grown broader.
A smile that lit up the hospital, that lit up the entire city.
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